Interim Learning Report

1. Business Idea

The business idea is to start a freelancing web portal, whereby services of illustrator for business organizations will be provided for advertising purposes and for publishing in news and in books. Likewise, the services of content creator, content editor and blogging will also be provided to small businesses, who want to promote their business. Finally, the social media management services will also be offered through freelancing web portal. 

2. Resource ProfileThe idea of opening freelancing business is aligned with strong resource profile, which is likely to support the practical execution of business idea. In terms of human capital availability, I have well developed skills to draw images as illustrator, my good writing skills can enable me to create attractive blogs and social media skills can support management to social media content of the clients. The social capital is comprised of experiences elder brother in blogging and a close friend with logo and web designing experience. Financial Capital feasibility is based on the notion that limited budget is needed to start freelancing business. The details can be seen in table 1.

3. Cognitive and Socio Political Legitimacy

The cognitive legitimacy of business idea is based on the notion that online space is taking over traditional physical workplaces and most of the businesses pursue services of freelancers for marketing and promotional purpose. The pursuit of freelancing services for illustration, blogging, content editing and social media management is highly attractive, as it involves limited resources and cost is much less than hiring full time personnel for performing these jobs within premises of the organization (Mays, 2017). 

On the other hand, the socio political legitimacy of the idea can be witnessed by the fact that recently, COVID-19 outbreak has transformed the way businesses work and digitally working from home has become need of society. The acceptability for digital freelancing has increased to all time higher levels and it is expected that substantial percentage of future business work will be virtual (Burke & Cowling, 2019). It indicates that along with high cognitive legitimacy, the digital freelancing business idea also has high socio-political legitimacy. 

4. Variation, Selection and Retention

Although strong resource profile and cognitive and socio-political legitimacy is witnessed for freelancing web portal, yet it is considerable that in long run, there will be a need of skilled team to handle the digital promotional content making for the clients. The increase in clients will question the sufficiency of human capital as well as financial capital. It calls for variation in the approach of attaining financial resources, such that human capital needs of business can be met. For instance, one appropriate way is to approach the lending institutions or any investor, who might be convinced with legitimacy of the business idea. The enhanced access to financial resources can help in overcoming the issues with current business idea. Thus, the option of sourcing of finance from my father is not retained and other sources for financial feasibility will be considered.

5. Value Creation

The value for success of freelancing web portal business will be created through the use of two frameworks, encompassing; value shop and value networks. The notion of value shop will allow to use human capital resources for managing the work load (Visnjic et al., 2017). For instance, it will be ensured that hired team members are skillful in blogging, illustrations as well as social media management, such that they can be rotated across the divisions to accomplish the given tasks. 

On the other hand, the use of value network will be appropriate for value creation, as the freelancing business needs involvement of digital intermediaries. The combination of social as well as technological resources is crucial for assuring that co-creation of value can be supported. For instance, reliance on effective networks will support better collaboration with clients and thus clients tailored solution can be created. This way, maximum value can be generated for the clients.